Tony Blair backs PM with attack on Tory ‘time for a change’ slogan

Campaign trail: Tony Blair addresses the Trimdon Labour Club in his old constituency seat of Sedgefield today

Tony Blair attacked David Cameron's "time for a change" slogan today as he urged voters to back Gordon Brown for a fourth Labour term.

In a return to the political front line, the former prime minister said that the Conservatives' main election message was "the most vacuous slogan in politics".

Shielded from the press and public and amid heavy security, Mr Blair ducked confrontations with anti-war protesters before hailing Mr Brown as the right man to steer Britain out of recession.

In a tightly-controlled event at Trimdon Labour Club in his former Sedgefield constituency, Mr Blair praised the "experience, judgment and boldness" of his successor in No 10 and the "decisive action" taken to deal with the economic crisis.

Mr Blair urged voters to make a "positive choice" for a Labour term.

But as the Conservatives raised questions about his lucrative overseas earnings and tax status, he criticised their lack of experience and said that the public now didn't know what the Tories stood for. He said: "They seem like they haven't made up their mind about where they stand; and so the British public finds it hard to make up its mind about where it stands. In uncertain times, there is a lot to be said for certain leadership."

Speaking in the same spot where he announced his resignation in 2007, a tanned Mr Blair said that the economic crisis was central to the coming election. "It required leadership; Gordon Brown supplied it."

The event marked a significant return to frontline domestic politics by Mr Blair, now a Middle East peace envoy, and is to be the first of several interventions before the national poll, expected on 6 May.

With Lord Mandelson restored to the Cabinet and former communications chief Alastair Campbell also back in the fray, it completes the return of the architects of New Labour.